I worried I overslept the next day, so well-rested was I, but as usual, the clock said 6:17. But even well-rested Nora didn't love Monday mornings. I found my coffee already made and piping hot. Something told me Simon didn't leave after he said good-bye. "Simon?" I called into the apartment. But I knew he wasn't there. The aloneness of the place was dull. He had brightened my apartment a bit, being here. Shadow #1 had too. I supposed that's what friends did to a place. Made it a home. I wondered if living spaces could bank hominess. Like when Gwen used to come over, did my walls absorb our friendship to sustain me during my loneliest days? If so, I hoped it was soaking in the shadows energy too. Except The Murderess. She could keep her toxicity.

Simon's words echoed in my ears. "We are literally dying to help you." I put a hand on my hip in the mirror. I still didn't like being pressured to change. But. Maybe I could allow one small admittance. Maybe I wasn't "perfectly happy just the way I am," as I'd insisted. He wanted a little change? Maybe I could sacrifice something small. My appearance. Maybe I could make an effort with my appearance. It's a whole heck of a lot easier changing my surface than it is to rearrange my heart.

I would start with make-up. It didn't escape me that my current routine made me look... well, dead. The sexy vampire look was fine for some people, but looking dead made me feel dead. I would soften things up a bit today. Clothes were harder. I did a deep dive into the back of my closet and found some pants that miraculously still fit. Like, they actually fit. Not the boxy, hanging off me, ugly pants I wore every day with a belt cinched so tight, the pant tops popped like a blooming onion around my middle. Gwen left a mustard yellow top at my house and I took the liberty of putting it on. I was a little bigger chested than her, so it stretched more than I would have liked, but it would do.

"There!" I said to Simon, wherever he was, "It might not be the change you were looking for, but it's something, right?"

It's not like anybody really sees me at work. I only talk with customers on the phone and I mostly sit in my cube all day. Carol gave a curt, "Good Morning," as she walked by my cube. She was all business again today. Gone was any semblance of the thoughtful woman that offered me soup on Saturday. I couldn't remember the last time I'd initiated a conversation with her. I waited until I heard her hang up with a customer. "Thank you for the gift card, Carol."

"You're welcome. Glad you're feeling better."

"Yup."

Well, that was pretty painless. My phone rang just then and I was thankful I didn't have to pursue that conversation. "Cutter Co." I answered.

"Nora? It's Abby."

"Abs? Why are you calling me at work?"

"You aren't answering your cell! You haven't been for two days! I was worried!" I shoved my hand into my bag. Dead.

"Oh. It looks like it's dead."

"Nora! Good grief. You scared me!" My sister was panting. I imagined her rubbing her forward the way mom did. She was a spitting image of her, with her strawberry blonde hair and heart-shaped face. Her eyes were always excited, like she was keeping an awesome secret. And mom often was. She'd drive past school, all of us with our backpacks and lunch boxes, and announce. "We're playing hooky! Let's go to Six Flags instead!" And zoom past our friends honking the horn as we waved and bounced in our seats. We never suspected a thing because her eyes were always little sparkly exclamation points, like any moment could be a wonderful surprise.

I looked much more like my dad.

"Sorry. I'm fine," I said. A puff of air blew hard into my ear.

"Good." A long pause. She was trying to tell me something.

"What's up, Abs?"

"Well. We got a couple Thanksgiving invitations." I didn't like the sound of this at all. I opened my mouth to cut her off, but she blurted her words like a shaken can of pop, spewing the fizz all over my life. "Tim wants us to do Thanksgiving with he and Margot and Joanna. Then Dad invited us to come visit him."

"Dad."

"Dad. And Tim and Margot and Joanna."

"What are we supposed to do with Dad? Have a vending machine meal?"

"Um. I don't know. We didn't really discuss food."

I did not have the words to reply. I hadn't seen our dad since he went to prison. "Did he tell you to invite me?"

"He did. Yes."

"He just can't take a hint, can he? You'd think after fifteen years he would back off." The last time I saw my dad he was in our driveway, handcuffed. He worked all the time. We rarely saw him, but he took the weekend off that weekend and it was an Event. We planned a million things, except him being arrested. My mom sobbed beside the topiary she'd put out on the porch for Christmas. Abby was babysitting across town. Eric was still asleep. I stood behind my mom and watched my dad go without a fight, without telling us it was a mistake, without any words of comfort. I only had my learner's permit then, but I drove to the house where Abby was babysitting. I parked across the road and cried in the car until the parents came home and she walked out. Eric was still asleep when we got home.

"He's changed though, Nore. She'd been telling me that for the last fourteen and a half years. But if I knew anything about anything, it was that people didn't change that easily. "He's out next year. Are you going to ignore him then too?" Yes. That was my plan. Ignore him forever.

"Nora?" Little Cut stood at my cubicle entrance. He never came in. Like the professional mediocrity might rub off on him.

"I have to go. Talk to you later." I hung up without a good-bye.

"Could I see you in my office?" Wow. This day was shaping up to be a real suckfest.

"Sure." I followed him in, taking just a little satisfaction in his expression when he realized I didn't look like death warmed over today.

"You look nice."

"Thank you."

He shut the door behind us and motioned for me to take a seat. So this was it. I was getting fired. Where else could I apply? As a barista? A bank? Holding signs for the new Costco? Go back to culinary school, a voice whispered. I shut it up in a hurry.

"So." Little Cut looked nervous. I wondered if he'd ever fired anybody before. "I did it."

I blinked at him. "Sorry?"

"I got the tattoo this weekend!"

"Oh! Oh! You did?" A surprising entanglement of relief and disappointment pressed on me. "Um, how did it go?"

"Well, it's not infected, thanks to you. Don't Blink was a win. Wanna see?"

He looked like a kid getting a bike on Christmas. Although he probably got cash bonds or something for all his Christmases.

"Yeah, let's see." When he unbuttoned his sleeves I had to tuck my lips in to keep from smiling at his trembling fingers. He rolled his sleeves up (those forearms were no joke. I busied myself flattening out an invisible wrinkle in my pants to keep from staring.)

"Voila!"

Above the crook of his arm, on the inside of a very lean bicep, was a tattoo as big as my middle finger. He held it out awkwardly and I leaned over his desk. "Is that... a lamppost?" Hand on my heart, Little Cut giggled and blushed.

"It's from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It's my favorite book." Ohmygosh. Little Cut was a nerd!

I looked at him over his arm, over his desk and spoke the truest words I'd spoken in years. "Wow. I like you so much more now!" And we covered our mouths and laughed. I looked at the lamppost again and my dad wasn't in prison, my mom was back, Gwen still lived here, and I was planning a Bolognese for dinner. My smile slowed. "I really love it- um. Ryan."

Unlike Simon's smile, Little Cut's (Ryan's!) was fast. It hit me like a freight train and flattened me. "I'd better get back to it. Carol, you know?"

"Yeah. Thanks again for the parlor recommendation."

I gave him a thumbs up. When did I become aperson who gave thumbs up? I tucked them back into my fists in a hurry andhustled back to my phone. But the next person who called was cheery and Icouldn't even bring myself to hate them.